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Gary Edwards

The Biggest Price-Fixing Scandal Ever - and the VESTS Solution - 0 views

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    excerpt: Uber financial investigative journalist Matt Taibbi has discovered what we too realized when we began to scrutinize the financial industry. In his latest article, he writes, "Everything Is Rigged: The Biggest Price-Fixing Scandal Ever." The article's cut line is, "The Illuminati were amateurs. The second huge financial scandal of the year reveals the real international conspiracy: There's no price the big banks can't fix." Taibbi's incredulity is evident throughout the article, as well it should be. The interest-rate swap market is part of the larger derivatives market that totals over one billion TRILLION dollars............................... "Given the endless financial scandals that keep sweeping across the industry, it is fairly obvious that this regulatory system needs a good deal of improvement. In fact, I think that it may be no coincidence that so much is being revealed now. The idea is surely to create the conditions for another international regulatory effort that will end up further controlling what is left of free-market capital raising. It is a global game for globalists. The game is to regulate everything and then to position oneself above the regulations and above the governments that wield them. This gives you tremendous power over everyone else. One of the tools being used to whip up sentiment for a larger regulatory revisiting is scandal and more scandal. There have been revelations of so-called crooked practices in a number of areas lately, mostly in the area of industry pricing. It turns out that many standard prices are set via indications of interest rather than outright competition. We can see the same system at work in the gold market, where a small group of wise men set the price for physical gold every day. And now, as Taibbi and others have revealed, the dysfunctional system also affects interest rate swaps. This has incensed Taibbi, who opens his article as follows: Conspiracy theorists of the world, believers in the
Gary Edwards

CONSERVATISM IS CALLING - YouTube as good as it gets! - 0 views

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    Really well done video presentation concerning the presidential election, now just four days away.  The first half races through Obama's mess, with excellent graphics and video clips portraying the fiasco.  The second half is focused on Romney and his plan to clean up the mess Obama has left to him. Courtesy of the Bay Area Patriots Group
Gary Edwards

Robosigning Credit Cards: The Next Major Bank Scandal? | The Reformed Broker - 0 views

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    This article is definately a "must read".  The summary is that the credit card debt mess is far worse than the mortgage foreclosure mess.  The Banksters are guilty of massive illegal activities in foreclosure gate, including forging documents and signatures.  Apparently the same thing has happened with Credit Card Debt Collection!!!! excerpt:   From American Banker: "If sloppy record keeping and problems with false affidavits is a problem with mortgages, it's 100 times bigger in credit card accounts," says Michelle Weinberg of the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago. Worse than mortgages, even? Let's just review the mortgage situation: Robosigning consists of blatantly illegal practices in which banks and mortgage companies had their employees sign affidavits and other documents without verifying the information therein; forge signatures on documents; backdate documents; falsely notarize documents; create new documents to replace missing ones; or some combination of all the above. Did I mention that all of this is illegal? Contrary to what the banks would have you believe, robosigning was not a one-off - it happened on a systematic level. So much so that some of the nation's largest banks (including Bank of America Corp. and  JPMorgan Chase & Co., ) were forced to halt foreclosures to "review" these practices in late 2010. The companies that did this claimed that they had to cut corners because they couldn't keep up with all of the paperwork created by the housing boom last decade. But we now know that this is not true - there's evidence that robo-signing goes back all the way to at least 1998. This all means that thousands of Americans were foreclosed upon erroneously and that even homebuyers and sellers in good standing may be unable to prove their rightful ownership. The problem is so big that Sheila Bair, the former head of the FDIC, acknowledged that they don't even know how big it is. It's so big that the b
Paul Merrell

Cleaning Up Hillary's Libyan Mess - Consortiumnews - 0 views

  • U.S. officials are pushing a dubious new scheme to “unify” a shattered Libya, but the political risk at home is that voters will finally realize Hillary Clinton’s responsibility for the mess, writes Robert Parry.
Gary Edwards

Clinton Body Count - 0 views

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    The infamous list of Clinton associates mysteriously found dead.  The dead bodies associated with the Clintons is well worth reviewing on this the eve of congressional testimony from the many Benghazi Whistleblowers.   Just speculation, but i'm in the camp of those who believe that the Benghazi Massacre was an arranged kidnapping gone bad.  The idea was to kidnap Libyan Ambassador Christopher Stevens, and trade him for the blind Sheikh, Oamr Abdel-Rahman - the man behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.   Ever since the Muslim Brotherhood took over Egypt, and did so with the assistance of Obama, President Morsi has been lobbying Obama to release and return the blind Sheikh.  In fact, Morsi's first statement as President of Egypt was to promise the Muslim Brotherhood that he would secure the release of the blind Sheikh.  For sure not something Obama could do without some sort of compelling pretext.  Hence the kidnapping plot. Hard to figure out what went wrong with the grand plan. There was never an embassy or consulate in Benghazi. The facilities in Benghazi served as a logistics center for arms and weapons transfers from Libya ultimately destined for the anti-Assad - Muslim Brotherhood terrorists in Syria. It was used by the "State Department's CIA," which is quite different than the actual CIA, to collect and store all the weapons Obama had supplied the Libyan rebels with in their efforts to overthrow Ghadaffi.  And then there's the 20,000 (400 tons worth) heat seeking surface-to-air (SA-7's) missles that Ghaddafi had amassed. Just prior to his kidnapping, Ambassador Stevens was meeting with the Turkish Consul General Ali Sait Akin to arrange another shipment of the captured arms.   The al-Qaeda linked Lybian Islamiuc Fighting Group, headed by Abdelhakim Belhadj, also coveted those weapons.  But this group was supposedly disbanded when Ghadaffi was killed!    It was Belhadj's guys that killed Ambassador Stevens, even though Belhadj him
Gary Edwards

Rand Paul's Tea Party Response: Full Text - 0 views

  • With my five-year budget, millions of jobs would be created by cutting the corporate income tax in half, by creating a flat personal income tax of 17%, and by cutting the regulations that are strangling American businesses.
  • America has much greatness left in her. We will begin to thrive again when we begin to believe in ourselves again, when we regain our respect for our founding documents, when we balance our budget, when we understand that capitalism and free markets and free individuals are what creates our nation’s prosperity.
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    Outstanding statement about what made America great, an dhow are government is destroying that greatness.  This is the full Text of Sen. Rand Paul's Tea Party Response to Obama's State of the Union Address: I speak to you tonight from Washington, D.C. The state of our economy is tenuous but our people remain the greatest example of freedom and prosperity the world has ever known. People say America is exceptional. I agree, but it's not the complexion of our skin or the twists in our DNA that make us unique. America is exceptional because we were founded upon the notion that everyone should be free to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. For the first time in history, men and women were guaranteed a chance to succeed based NOT on who your parents were but on your own initiative and desire to work. We are in danger, though, of forgetting what made us great. The President seems to think the country can continue to borrow $50,000 per second. The President believes that we should just squeeze more money out of those who are working. The path we are on is not sustainable, but few in Congress or in this Administration seem to recognize that their actions are endangering the prosperity of this great nation. Ronald Reagan said, government is not the answer to the problem, government is the problem. Tonight, the President told the nation he disagrees. President Obama believes government is the solution: More government, more taxes, more debt. What the President fails to grasp is that the American system that rewards hard work is what made America so prosperous. What America needs is not Robin Hood but Adam Smith. In the year we won our independence, Adam Smith described what creates the Wealth of Nations. He described a limited government that largely did not interfere with individuals and their pursuit of happiness. All that we are, all that we wish to be is now threatened by the notion that you can have something for nothing, that you can have your cake and ea
Gary Edwards

MF Global: Where's the Cash? -- Part II | ZeroHedge - 0 views

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    It's complicated.  The bottom line is that we know where the $1.6 Billion in customer assets, squandered and "lost" by Corzine, is.  JP Morgan is holding the bulk of it, and due to recent changes in the 546(e) section of the Federal Bankruptcy code, JP Morgan and the other big banksters will be able to keep that money from it's rightful owners.  Oh, yeah.  One other thing.  The big banksters now running off with the assets of investors are the very same people who lobbied hard and heavy ($$$) to have the changes in the code pushed through by their unwitting stooges in Congress. excerpt: This week in The Institutional Risk Analyst we published a comment on the ongoing financial genocide at MF Global, "MF Global: Where's the Cash?"  http://us1.irabankratings.com/pub/IRAstory.asp?tag=515 The comment correctly identifies the location of the "missing" $1.6 billion as JP Morgan Chase and other bank custodians of MF Global.  The trouble is that even though we now know where the missing customer money has gone, namely JPMorgan, there is little chance that the defrauded customers of Jon Corzine will ever recover a dime. Here's the link to a video by William Rochelle of Bloomberg News explaining how the safe harbor in Section 546(e) of the Bankruptcy Code likely will prevent MF Global customers from ever getting their $1.6 billion back -- even when it's located, as it has been evidently. ... (MONEY SHOT) The problem here is that the existing laws against pillaging customer accounts and other acts of fraud are in conflict with the bankruptcy statute designed to make the world safe for large banks and over-the-counter derivatives.  Specifically, the post 2005 bankruptcy laws prohibit trustees from clawing back the $1.6 billion in stolen customer funds.  Indeed, the Bankruptcy Court and trustee are precluded from pursuing the banks just as the trustee in the Madoff fraud has likewise been stymied.    In addition to the clients of MF Global who were ap
Gary Edwards

J.P. Morgan Chase's Ugly Family Secrets Revealed | Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone - 0 views

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    Socialist blogger and Rolling Stone Magazine journalist Matt Taibi has made a career out of exposing Banksters and their criminal activities causing the 2008 collapse of the global financial industry.  Here he sights a story in American Banker that fully demonstrates the depths of depravity and criminal activities that continues to characterize big Banksters. The mortgage-foreclosure-robo signing scandal is just the tip of the ice berg.  Matt recounts the story of Linda Almonte, a JP Morgan Chase employee in charge of Credit Card debt bundling.  It's horrific. Money shot: The financial crash wouldn't have happened if even a slim plurality of financial executives had done what Linda Almonte did, i.e. simply refuse to sign off on a bogus transaction. If companies had merely upheld their own stated policies and stayed within the ballpark of the law, none of these messes could have accumulated: fraudulent mortgages wouldn't have been sold, families wouldn't have been foreclosed upon based on robo-signed documentation, investors wouldn't have been duped into buying huge packets of "misrepresented assets." ............. excerpt: In a story that should be getting lots of attention, American Banker has released an excellent and disturbing exposé of J.P. Morgan Chase's credit card services division, relying on multiple current and former Chase employees. One of them, Linda Almonte, is a whistleblower whom I've known since last September; I'm working on a recount of her story for my next book. One of the things we were promised by the lawmakers who passed the Dodd-Frank reform bill a few years back is that this would be a new era for whistleblowers who come forward to tell the world about problems in our financial infrastructure. This story now looms as a test case for that proposition. American Banker reporter Jeff Horwitz did an outstanding job in this story detailing the sweeping irregularities in-house at Chase, but his very thoroughness means the news may have ram
Gary Edwards

PETER SCHIFF: The Housing Bust Was Just A Preview For The Coming Catastrophe - Business Insider - 0 views

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    Peter Schiff talks about his new book "The Real Crash: America's Coming Bankruptcy, How to Save Yourself and Your Country".  I caught the Coast-to-Coast "Financial Crisis Special" interview with Peter earlier this week where he spoke on the "Real Crash" issues.  Stunning stuff.  His hour on Coast was followed by Lindsey Williams who pointed out that the New World Order - Illuminati - Bankster trigger point would be signaled by a collapse in the derivatives market. The derivatives market is now over a quadrillion dollars of  casino style gambling.  This is where Banksters make huge bets on things like whether or not interest rates will go up or down.  Then they take out insurance to cover their bets, which further compounds the cost.  Recent events like the Jon Corzine MF Global gamble that the Federal Reserve Bankster Cartel would backstop explosive European sovereign bankster debt are the first indications of collapse in the derivatives market.  We now know that JP Morgan placed similar bets on a European bailout by the Federal Reserve and World Bank, and lost big.  The only difference is that Corzine robbed his clients personal accounts to cover his bets. While Schiff argues the facts on the table, the "what", Lindsay argued the "why"; claiming that this escalating debt mess is all by design.  Lindsay claims that an operational fundamental of the New World Order elites is to first overturn the USA Constitution.  Using a Machiavellian Principle known as, "out of chaos comes order", they seek to de-stabilize and overthrow the USA Constitutional Republic using massive and crushing debt to first destroy the dollar currency.  This will create massive chaos requiring martial law and government seizure of private property and production. Peter Schiff warns that the government is driving us deeper into debt at exactly the time we should be saving and investing those savings in future private sector productivity.  Lindsay argues that this is all by desig
Gary Edwards

Judge Blocks Citigroup Settlement With S.E.C. - NYTimes.com - 0 views

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    The greatest theft in the history of mankind, and a posse of one Judge and a few State Attorney Generals is all we have on the hunt.  Pathetic.  But thank God for Judge Jed S. Rakoff of United States District Court in Manhattan!   The Federal Government is so corrupt and politicized that regulatory agencies are bagmen for the worst kind of crony capitalism ever seen.  I would rather shut down these corrupt and crony laden regulatory agencies and replace them with legislation requiring full transparency and reporting to the PUBLIC.  A process that would enable lawyers and Courts to sift through the mess, and let contract law, legal settlements, class actions and lawsuit penalties be the instruments of regulatory oversight.  Judge Rakoff should be the next Supreme Court nominee.
Gary Edwards

Porter Stansberry - This could be Porter Stansberry's most outrageous interview ever - 1 views

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    Incredible interview with Porter Stansberry.  He explains his outrage, and in doing so speaks for all of us.  You'll be angry, but feeling good that you're hardly alone.  The unvarnished truth about every mystery concerning the reasons why we can't get a handle on this mess.  Porter for President!
Gary Edwards

The worst rise to the top - Mises Economic Blog - 0 views

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    Very interesting post from Douglas French concerning the repubican primaries and F.A. Hayek's "Road to Serfom" comments on modern politics. Fascinating stuff. Hayek argues that, in politics, "the worst rise to the top", and he outlines three reasons why: .... Choosing is the problem. Informed people are more "nuanced" - they have many divergent opinions and views. Uniformity however drives the group dynamics behind a democratic process. Uniformity of opinion rules, and the less informed a person is, the more uniform and drawn to larger groups they will be. The "lowest common denominator" rule rules the democratic process. Mobocracy at work. .... Those on top, pursuing the political leadership positions, must appeal to the masses and weave together the groups driven by the "lowest common denominator" rule. The docile and gullible "are ready to accept whatever values and ideology drummed into them". Advantage to big media, the socialist assemblage ruling public education, and public workers unions. ..... Third, political leaders "don't promote a positive agenda, but a negative one of hating an enemy and envy of the wealthy. To appeal to the masses, leaders preach an "us" against "them" program." The great unwashed and uninformed being guided and driven "by emotion and passion rather than critical thinking." Not sure i agree with any of this, much as i admire and recognize the importance of Hayek and his seminal, game changing "Road to Serfdom". One reason is that some of the most informed people i know are goose stepping socialist hell bent on ending individual liberty - as in "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", in exchange for Marxist social equality. Another reason i would disagree is that the salt of the earth "bitter clingers" Reagan Conservatives that rock the Tea Party movement are exactly what the establishment elites call the "uninformed masses". Not sure if that's what Hayek meant, but his viewpoint does look a
Gary Edwards

» For the GOP, Moderate Is the New Conservative - Big Government - 1 views

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    Whoa! Great read!   I think i've met my doppleganger. And he can write.  Funny but earlier today Marbux and i had a lengthy eMail exchange about this exact same topic.  Clearly we are not alone in wondering what has happened to the Tea Party?   I have been trying to get my thoughts together about the rope-a-dope of Rush Limbaugh, which predictably resulted in the fragmentation and total route of the Tea Party Patriot movement. Thirty three days into the election primary cycle and the hands down winner is, The Big Government Establishment".  How did the establishment of trough feeding repubicans, democrats and corporatist/banksters do this? And do it so quickly and efficiently? This article attempts to describe the gradual push towards big government socialism.  No doubt the democratic party is the party of socialism, running the gamut from liberals, to progressives, to Euro socialist, to Marxist, communists and hard core Stalinist. Obammunism itself is a rather unique blend of Marxist enviro socialism driven and funded by fascist crony corporatism/banksterism.    The article further describes what used to be moderates as big government social progressives with a strong dose of military merchatilist interventionism.  The artile also calls these types "neo conservatives"  I guess because the neo moderates are describing themselves as new conservatives. Which is an insult to any Goldwater - Reagan conservative.  Like me.  Or at least i was until this past summer when a kind group of libertarians educated me on the Constitution.  I was Federalist  style, social/militarist conservative.  Now i'm a Jefferson-Madison libertarian strict Constitutionalist. So i've been there.  And "neo conservative" is not conservative in any sense other than that of militarist-merchantilist make the world safe for democracy through big, really big, government social and military programs.  And oh yeah, the neo moderate is a Federal Reserve big corporatist/bankster ty
Gary Edwards

Federal Reserve Loans Need To Be Investigated - post-journal.com | News, Sports, Jobs, Community Information - Jamestown | Post-Journal - 1 views

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    I'm almost too afraid to look, but the Federal Reserve must be stopped.  Let's see, the Treasury takes in $2 Trillion per year in taxes;  the ruling establishment has tripled the spending, pegging at $3.6 Trillion per year; meaning we have to finance a deficit of $1.6 Trillion per year; and we're facing interest payments on the national debt of $5 Trillion per year with unfunded "social" obligation at $100 Trillion.  Now we find out the Federal Reserve Bankster Cartel passed out over $7 Trillion in goodies to member banksters before they secretly passed out $16.2 Trillion to the Cartel to cover the 2008 financial collapse losses. Time to dust off Executive Order 11110, issued by President John F Kennedy five months prior to the coup d'état, giving the Treasury Department the explicit authority to issue silver certificates backed by Treasury silver bullion, if needed.  Basically Order 11110 stripped the Federal Reserve Bankster Cartel of it's power to loan money to the US Government at interest.  The Federal Reserve Notes in use would be competing with newly minted US Silver Certificates.   It would be easy enough to pay off the Bankster Cartel interest with official Federal Reserve Notes since there is so much paper out there.  But i would prefer the RiCO statue be invoked, assets seized, and charges of treason levied via the outrageous violations of the 1792 Coinage Act and conspiracy to destroy the dollar.   Many Americans, myself included, have long wondered why We the People would charge ourselves "interest" on money we borrow from our future selves?  Who does that?  But when we discover that the Federal Reserve is about as 'Federal" as Federal Express, the narrative wuickly leads to questions of how did it happen that we turned governance and stewardship of the national currency over to a private cartel of banksters?   Is the Federal Reserve Bankster Act of 1913 constitutional? Hardly.  Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution la
Paul Merrell

Putin's decision to send troops to Ukraine, recall ambassador from US depends on developments - Peskov - News - Politics - The Voice of Russia: News, Breaking news, Politics, Economics, Business, Russia, International current events, Expert opinion, podca - 0 views

  • Putin to decide whether to send troops to Ukraine, recall ambassador from US depending on developments, Vladimir Putin's spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said. Russia’s Federation Council has unanimously approved President Vladimir Putin’s request to use Russian military forces in Ukraine. The move is aimed to settle the turmoil in the split country. President Vladimir Putin has not yet decided whethe to deploy Russian troops in Ukraine, his spokesman was quoted as saying on Saturday after the Federation Council upper house of parliament empowered him to do so.
  • The upper house of the Russian parliament has voted in favor of sending troops to the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, which would ensure peace and order in the region "until the socio-political situation in the country is stabilized." The Russian president will make the final decision on the strength of Russian troops to be used in the Ukraine in accordance with the decision of the Federation Council.The Federation Council’s decision to grant the Russian president the right to use Russian troops in the Crimea does not mean that it will be done in the nearest future, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
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    I've been following the situation closely in the Ukraine but haven't been posting many bookmarks on the topic. Ukraine was hit by a U.S.-instigated "color" protest, leading to the outster of the Ukainian Prime Minister and capture of the Ukraine government by U.S.-backed neo-Nazi groups.  The U.S. has admittedly spent $5 billion on the effort thus far.  Crimea was originally part of Russia (in fact the portion where ethnic Russians originated) until 1954, when the Ukrainian Nikita Khruschev transferred Crimea to the Ukraine. Crimea is majority ethnic Russian and its economy is hugely dependent on trade with Russia. Crimea is also home to Russia's only naval port accessible from the Mediterranean Sea, Sevastopol, on the Black Sea. As Pepe Escobar observed, a Crimea under the control of NATO is a neocon-wet dream, cutting the naval supply line between Russia and its Navy base in Syria and surrounding Russia on another edge with missile batteries. Russia will not give ground in Crimea. Putin now has the legal authorization from the Russian Parliament to use military force to protect all of the Ukraine, including Crimea, from western encroachment.  He's also been authorized to recall Russia's ambassador from the U.S. Another mess that could lead to war cooked up by neocons in the U.S. State Department and CIA.   The presence of neocons in U.S. government needs to be a major issue in our next Presidential election. But don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen.
Paul Merrell

As Federal Prison Population Spiked 790 Percent, Average Drug Sentences Doubled | ThinkProgress - 0 views

  • The federal prison population has ballooned 790 percent since 1980, and almost half of those now imprisoned are there for drugs. In the coming years, the Bureau of Prisons projects that prison overcrowding will get even worse. While federal prisons are now 35 to 40 percent over capacity, they are expected by 2023 to reach 55 percent over capacity without a policy change, according to a new report by the Urban Institute. The prison population explosion was not driven primarily by a spike in crime, but by a change in punishment. Over a 25-year period, average drug sentences doubled from 38.5 months in 1984 to 74 months in 2011. And over a similar period, the percentage of convicted federal offenders sentenced to prison spiked from 50 percent in 1986 to 90 percent in 2011. Before the passage of several draconian laws that impose mandated harsh sentences and remove judicial discretion, many offenders received probation or a fine for the same violations.
  • Now, public officials are among those looking for a solution. And the Urban Institute found that, while no one policy change will be enough to cure the inmate population explosion, the one single thing that could have the greatest impact is reforming mandatory minimum sentences. “Cutting mandatory minimums in half could save almost $2.5 billion in 10 years,” Urban Institute Senior Fellow Julie Samuels writes. “This measure alone would reduce overcrowding to the lowest it has been in decades.” There are now several bipartisan mandatory minimum bills pending in both houses of Congress. And the bipartisan momentum has never been greater, with even the world’s largest association of corrections officials and the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council urging mandatory minimum reform.
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    Life in the "land of the free." Five per cent of the world's population, but  25 per cent of the world's incarcerated prisoners. Drug legalization and release of all prisoners convicted of drug crimes not involving violence would do far more to bring some order to this mess.  But the desire to regulate seems irresistible, particularly when it serves as very thin cover for racial repression. Never mind that legalization would also end the drug war raging in Mexico.  "But we can't legalize immoral behavior." "Would you prefer that people buy their drugs from a government dispensary or from the kid down the block, you know, the one with the AK-47?"  
Paul Merrell

SPIEGEL Exclusive: NSA Spies on International Bank Transactions - SPIEGEL ONLINE - 0 views

  • The National Security Agency (NSA) widely monitors international payments, banking and credit card transactions, according to documents seen by SPIEGEL. The information from the American foreign intelligence agency, acquired by former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden, show that the spying is conducted by a branch called "Follow the Money" (FTM). The collected information then flows into the NSA's own financial databank, called "Tracfin," which in 2011 contained 180 million records. Some 84 percent of the data is from credit card transactions. Further NSA documents from 2010 show that the NSA also targets the transactions of customers of large credit card companies like VISA for surveillance. NSA analysts at an internal conference that year described in detail how they had apparently successfully searched through the US company's complex transaction network for tapping possibilities.
  • Their aim was to gain access to transactions by VISA customers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, according to one presentation. The goal was to "collect, parse and ingest transactional data for priority credit card associations, focusing on priority geographic regions." In response to a SPIEGEL inquiry, however, VISA issued a statement in which it said, "We are not aware of any unauthorized access to our network. Visa takes data security seriously and, in response to any attempted intrusion, we would pursue all available remedies to the fullest extent of the law. Further, its Visa's policy to only provide transaction information in response to a subpoena or other valid legal process." The NSA's Tracfin data bank also contained data from the Brussels-based Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), a network used by thousands of banks to send transaction information securely. SWIFT was named as a "target," according to the documents, which also show that the NSA spied on the organization on several levels, involving, among others, the agency's "tailored access operations" division. One of the ways the agency accessed the data included reading "SWIFT printer traffic from numerous banks," the documents show.
  • But even intelligence agency employees are somewhat concerned about spying on the world finance system, according to one document from the UK's intelligence agency GCHQ concerning the legal perspectives on "financial data" and the agency's own cooperations with the NSA in this area. The collection, storage and sharing of politically sensitive data is a deep invasion of privacy, and involved "bulk data" full of "rich personal information," much of which "is not about our targets," the document says.
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    NSA and GCHQ spying on banksters' transactions? I'll bet that comes to a screeching halt soon. Isn't it unwritten law in the Obama Administration that no government agencies mess with the banksters?
Paul Merrell

UN votes overwhelmingly on five decisions on the Question of Palestine - 0 views

  • The United Nations General Assembly has overwhelmingly adopted five draft resolutions on the Question of Palestine. This year's number of countries to vote in favour of draft resolutions on the Question of Palestine has increased compared to last year. The draft resolutions are:
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    The only "no" votes on any of the five resolutions were cast by Israel, the United States, Australia, Canada, The Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau, the usual nay-sayers when it comes to straightening out the mess between Israel and Palestine. The rest either voted for them or abstained. Israel is truly a pariah nation. The only significant barrier to resolution is the U.S. veto power in the Security Council and its pretense of acting as the mediator of a two-state solution. The U.S. voted in favor of many Security Council resolutions against gross Israeli misconduct before the assassination of Jack Kennedy. Ever since, the U.S. has steadfastly protected Israel on the Security Council. 
Gary Edwards

Revealed: Obama's Immense Shadow Army & Its Shocking Takeover Plan - 1 views

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    Is the ObamaCare train wreck a wreck by design? Another notch in the Bankster belt marking another step in the bankrupting of America? Revealed: Obama's Immense Shadow Army & Its Shocking Takeover Plan October 26, 2013  //  By: Eric Odom  //   The ObamaCare train wreck - it's awful, possibly purposeful, certainly useful for team Obama and its growing army of community activists and organizers. In a previous report, we explored the question, "What if the ObamaCare debacle is really a diversion, using a military term a "feint" - a tactical distraction to draw our attention, our focus and our fire away from the real point of attack on liberty?" Remember that horrible train wreck in Spain not long ago, captured on video? As tragic as it was, watching the crash and its gruesome aftermath was almost irresistible, wasn't it? Well, what if the disastrous rollout of the President's signature legislative achievement - what if this spectacular slow motion ObamaCare train wreck has been and is being allowed to happen so that what's going on around the bend from the fiery crash site gets little attention, from the public, from the media or from Congressional investigators? Think about it, friends. How could Barack Obama and his celebrated team of incredibly proficient, plugged in techies - the team that twice got him elected - be behind the utterly disastrous launch of the ObamaCare online storefront, healthcare.gov - arguably the biggest website failure in history? How could so much money have been spent to produce such a problem-plagued site that apparently was doomed in its developmental confusion? And how to fix this monumental mess, well, there doesn't seem to be any clear plan…other than hope. And now we learn that many, if not most, of the people actually signing up for ObamaCare through the website are enrolling in Medicaid, not signing up for private insurance policies they pay for, but adding their names onto government roll
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    There is no doubt in my mind that corporations (and their Chamber of Commerce boot licking lackys) believe that employer provided healthcare benefits was a HUGE MISTAKE. The key feature of ObamaCare is that of ENDING the HMO-Employee Healthcare profit draining quagmire these corporations somehow stumbled into. (Hint: they traded healthcare benefits for wide open government assisted Globalization - the new world order Merchantilism). IMHO, the insurance companies know full well that the entire HMO-Employee Healthcare bandwagon is going to end. Not because of socialism; because of profit hungry out of control mercantilism. So they are trying to cut the best deal possible with the government. The merchantilist doesn't care that their employees are going to suffer. They only care that this cost and the blame for losing the benefit is moved from their books to the government. Nor does the merchantilist care about protecting our borders. They want cheap labor. Even if the social cost of that cheap labor lands on the government and destroys the nation. That's why the merchantilist and his Bankster financiers support Open Borders. The merchantilist could care less about the trade deficit and the massive transfer of American manufacturing jobs overseas. As long as they can sell their junk back into the USA market without a 33% import tax these bastardos are happy to destroy their country. I wonder whose army and navy will secure their investments when the USA no longer can? Are their private armies enough? Just wondering.
Gary Edwards

Office Productivity Software Is No Closer To Becoming A Commodity | Forrester Blogs - 0 views

  • We just published a report on the state of adoption of Office 2013 And Productivity Suite Alternatives based on a survey of 155 Forrester clients with responsibility for those investments. The sample does not fully represent the market, but lets us draw comparisons to the results of our previous survey in 2011. Some key takeaways from the data:   One in five firms uses email in the cloud. Another quarter plans to move at some point. More are using Office 365 (14%) than Google Apps (9%).  Just 22% of respondents are on Office 2013. Another 36% have plans to be on it. Office 2013's uptake will be slower than Office 2010 because fewer firms plan to combine the rollout of Office 2013 with Windows 8 as they combined Office 2010 with Windows 7. Alternatives to Microsoft Office show little traction. In 2011, 13% of respondents supported open source alternatives to Office. This year the number is just 5%. Google Docs has slightly higher adoption and is in use at 13% of companies. 
  • Microsoft continues to have a stranglehold on office productivity in the enterprise: Just 6% of companies in our survey give all or some employees an alternative instead of the installed version of Microsoft Office. Most surprising of all, multi-platform support is NOT a priority. Apps on iOS and Android devices were important to 16% of respondents, and support for non-Windows PCs was important to only 11%. For now, most technology decision-makers seem satisfied with leaving employees to self-provision office productivity apps on their smartphones and tablets if they really want them. 
  • Do you think we're getting closer to replacing Microsoft Office in the workplace?
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    Wow, OpenOffice (3%) and Libre Office (2%) are actually losing gound!  In 2011 they had a combined marketshare of 13%.  Google Docs has a 13% marketshare, but i suspect most of those document originate in legacy MSOffice!!!!!  Making Google Drive - Apps a front end for mobile access and back-end backup.  In the middle of this mess, productivity workers struggle with shredded formats and the confusion of highly interactive and data intensive / time-sensitive compound documents going static (pdf) or otherwise disconnected. Intro: "We (Forrester) just published a report on the state of adoption of Office 2013 And Productivity Suite Alternatives based on a survey of 155 Forrester clients with responsibility for those investments. The sample does not fully represent the market, but lets us draw comparisons to the results of our previous survey in 2011. Some key takeaways from the data:   One in five firms uses email in the cloud. Another quarter plans to move at some point. More are using Office 365 (14%) than Google Apps (9%).  Just 22% of respondents are on Office 2013. Another 36% have plans to be on it. Office 2013's uptake will be slower than Office 2010 because fewer firms plan to combine the rollout of Office 2013 with Windows 8 as they combined Office 2010 with Windows 7. Alternatives to Microsoft Office show little traction. In 2011, 13% of respondents supported open source alternatives to Office. This year the number is just 5%. Google Docs has slightly higher adoption and is in use at 13% of companies. "
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